£451 



peRmalip6« 







THE PRELUDES OF HARPER'S FERRY. 

\ 

TWO PAPERS BT 

WENDELL PHILLIPS GAREISON. 

w 

Repbintbd from The Andoveb Review, December, 1890, Januabt, 1891. 



A^' 



e.*** 



••*' 



THE PKELUDES OF HARPER'S FERRY. 



I. JOHN BROWN, PRACTICAL SHEPHERD. 

In the first winter month of 1838-39, a tall, spare man, under 
middle age, unbearded and of grave countenance, a rustic by his 
garb, entered a stationer's store at 108 Broadway, New York, 
and bought a little book for the pocket. A common-looking 
affair, as we now view it in a period of cheap paper, it contained 
about fifty ruled leaves, and was bound in boards, backed with 
leather, and sided with marbled paper. On the inside of the 
cover the buyer penciled his name, with date and place of pur- 
chase, which he presently repeated in ink on the opposite fly-leaf, 
as follows : " Memoranum Book of John Brown Franklin Port- 
age Co Ohio Bought Decern 3d 1838 of G and C Carvill & Co 
Price $0.25." The price, two shillings, would be thought twice 
too dear to-day, and was equivalent in purchasing power to at 
least fifty cents of our present money. In the rural districts it 
meaiit an outLiy of two " square meals," as a cash account ou 
page 29, for April 20, 1840, shows : " To do for 2 dinners 0.25." 
Tested by this gauge, the poor have not grown poorer in the last 
half century of progress. 

The date, December 3, is noticeable. Our " Man of the Second 
of December " was entering on the first of the twenty-one years yet 
allotted him on this earth. Other men turn over a new leaf with 
the calendar year ; by chance he seized the atom of time which was 
to maik New Style for the remnant of his days. Nearly enough, 
too, the memorandum-book stands for a parting of the ways in 
John Brown's worldly affairs. A divinity student turned land- 
surveyor and then tanner, he cured his hides at Hudson, Ohio, 
till 1825, afterwards at Richmond, near Meadville, Penn., till 
1835, then at Franklin, Ohio, where he fell a victim to the well- 
known disease of buying farm lands to cut up prematurely into 
village lots. He was caught by the panic of 1837 and beggared. 
He was now free to choose an occupation more consonant vt^ith his 
tastes. In that autobiographic sketch which he wrote for young 



/ 



2 The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 

Stearns on July 15, 1859, as given in Sanborn's Life of Brown 
(pp. 12-17, and 58), we read : — 

" John began early in life to discover a great liking to fine Cattle, 
Horses, Sheep, & Swine ; & as soon as circumstances would enable him 
he began to be a practical Shepherd : it being a calling for which in 
early life he had a kind of enthusiastic longing : together with the idea 
that as a business it bid fair to afford him the means of carrying out his 
greatest or principal object." 

Of this principal object we shall speak later. We will first 
return to the memorandum-book, which John Brown's widow gave 
to her friend the late James Miller McKim. Its entries extend 
from December, 1838, to February, 1845. At the beginning of 
the year 1844 Brown had " entered into a copartnership with 
Simon Perkins, Jr., of Akron [Ohio], with a view to carry on 
the sheep business extensively." In 1846 he went to reside in 
Springfield, Mass., as member of the firm of Perkins & Brown, 
commission wool merchants. We have, therefore, in his well- 
worn pocket-companion a reflection of his roving pastoral career. 

We may say, once for all, of its contents, that they consist of 
accounts, personal addresses, memoranda ; recipes for the care of 
sheep and horses, for the garden, the dairy, the kitchen ; itine- 
raries ; and commonplaces — these last the fewest, yet the most 
instructive. There is also, on the reverse of the second fly-leaf, 
a plan of one floor of a house (24x56) provided with three bed- 
rooms, dining-room, sick-room, and " Butery." A trace of the 
surveyor appears in the entry (inked upon pencil, as often hap- 
pens) : " B Pike & Son 166 Broadway Instrument makers Left 
Compass Paid their bill Dec 5th " (videlicet^ 1838). Just above 
it is the Shepherd's wash-list during his stay in the metropolis : — 
*' Left for washing 

3 Canibrick Shirts 
1 Flannel do 

4 Collars 

3 Pair socks 
1 Pocket Handkerchief." 
Other such lists occur later, in varying proportions, but with the 
1 flannel (sometimes " flanel ") shirt and 1 handkerchief con- 
stant. After forty promiscuously filled pages, we come upon a 
blank series, and then upon fresh entries upside down, and the 
book must be turned end for end. 

John Brown's visit to New York in the winter of 1838 was in 
the course of a journey eastward to buy sheej). He left that city on 



The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 3 

December 7 for Litchfield, Conn., and proceeded thence to Hart- 
ford, which he made his headquarters from December 12 to Decem- 
ber 26, when he set out for Boston. He appears to have continued 
his trip to Walpole, N. H. By January 18, 1839, he was back in 
"West Hartford, and, after a fortnight's sojourn in the neighbor- 
hood, he began his homeward journey, which gives us a " Memo- 
randum of traveling expences for the purchase & driving of Cat- 
tle commenced at New Hartford Feby 9th 1839." On page 68 of 
Sanborn's Life will be found a home letter written by John 
Brown on the eve of this anabasis. His spirits were not of the 
best, but he was hopeful, and he strove to lighten the discourage- 
ment of his famil\% into which his son Owen would be born just 
a month after the driving began at New Hartford. Mr. Sanborn 
reports (p. 68) that in March, 1839, Brown " drove a herd of 
cattle from Ohio to Connecticut, and in July brought back with 
him a few fine sheep, from which he bred his first flock in Rich- 
field." Of this trip our memorandum-book gives the Eastern 
itinerary in detail, from Fredonia, Chautauqua Co., N. Y., by way 
of Ithaca to Orange Co., N. Y., and the Western, by way of 
Albany to Buffalo. On June 15, 1839, he settled his indebted- 
ness to Samuel Whitman, of West Hartford, for the keeping of 
the sheep, which he at once, presumably, began to drive to Ohio. 

Was John Brown ever in Boston before December, 1838 ? In 
the Life of my father (vol. iii., p. 487), 1 have surmised that 
he was there on May 24 of the same year, but I cannot support 
the conjecture. The memorandum- book records on its sixth 
page seven Boston addresses, all obviously for business purposes. 
There is not a trace of any approach to or interest in the aboli- 
tionists who had made Boston the headquarters of their enter- 
prise. The year stands in anti-slavery history as the climax of 
the Reign of Terror, having witnessed on May 17 the burning in 
Philadelphia of Pennsylvania Hall, the designated temple of free 
discussion. In Boston, a week later, a similar temple, the Marl- 
boro' Chapel, was menaced on its dedication with the same fate, 
and this is the occasion which alone (so far as I can ascertain) 
fits a reminiscence of John Brown's in his Virginia prison : " I 
once set myself to oppose a mob at Boston, where she [Lucretia 
Mott] was. . . . The meeting was, 1 think, in Marlboro' Street 
Church, or Hotel, perhaps." 

That John Brown should not have called at the " Liberator " 
office, or sought the acquaintance of the leading abolitionists, 
must seem strange to any one who connects with his warfare on 



4 The Preludes of Harper s Ferry. 

slavery (in any mode) his statement, already quoted, that he " be- 
gan to be a practical shepherd " because the " business bid fair 
to afford him the means of carrying out his greatest or principal 
object." Mr. Sanborn says that although Brown's earlier let- 
ters do not " contain much allusion to the anti-slavery crusade of 
Gai-rison, Gerrit Smith, Arthur Tappan, Wendell Phillips, and 
the other emancipators," he yet " took the warmest interest in 
these discussions from the first ; " but Mr. Sanborn gives not a 
particle of original, contemporary evidence of this interest before 
Brown's removal to Springfield in 1846. The very first allusion 
to the organized moral agitation against slavery dates no further 
back than 1848 or 1849, when Brown (in a newspaper article, 
personifying Sambo) speaks of " becoming enlightened by Gar- 
rison, Abby Kelley, and other really benevolent persons," " of 
late years." This mention, by the way, and the whole tenor of 
the article, " Sambo's Mistakes," show that John Brown was not 
yet of opinion that the abolitionists were all talk, and that what 
was wanted was action. I suspect that, till he came to reside in 
Springfield, he was very little in the way of seeing anti-slavery 
periodicals, or at all well informed of the progress of the cause. 
In his memorandum -book the only reference to newspapers is 
in the following entry (probably 1839-40) : " Get 3 vols of the 
♦ Evangelist ' bound ones for Father." On the other hand, for the 
later period, Sanborn copies a letter dated Springfield, March 12, 
1847, to his son John, in which he says : " Have paid your ac- 
count for the ' Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist,' 
together with two dollars for one year's subscription to ' National 
Era' [Washington] ; " and another, of April 12, 1847, in which 
he says : " I have ten times as many papers as I can read." 

Mr. Sanborn is now and again open to the charge of converting 
slender into solid evidence by dint of repetition. The vague 
phraseology of the Practical Shepherd in the Stearns letter as- 
sumes this shape in the course of a hundred pages of the Sanborn 
biography (p. 121) : — 

"He [Brown] seems to have declared a definite plan of attacking 
slavery in one of its strongholds, by force, as early as 1839 ; and it was 
to obtain money for this enterprise that he engaged in land speculations 
and wool - merchandise for the next ten or twelve years. . . . "While 
tending his flocks in Ohio, with his sons and daughters about him, he 
first communicated to them his purpose of attacking slavery in arras. 
From that time forward, a period of more than twenty years, he devoted 
himself, not exclusively, but mainly, to the undertaking in which he 
sacrificed his life." 



The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 6 

Now, as to the pursuit of wealth for the sake of the means to 
make a raid on the South, there is some incidental evidence to the 
contrary in Brown's letters as published by Mr. Sanborn himself. 
July 24, 1843 : " I have been careful and troubled with so much 
serving that I have in a great measure neglected the one thing 
needful, and pretty much stopped all correspondence with heaven." 
How could this be if he was making money in the service of 
heaven? June 22,1844: "The general aspect of our worldly 
affairs is favorable. Hope we do not entirely forget God. I am 
extremely ignorant at present of miscellaneous subjects." Jan- 
uary 27, 1846 : " I think we have quite as much worldly pros- 
perity as will be likely to be a real blessing to us." April 2, 1847 : 
" I am quite sensible of the truth of your [his father's] remark, 
that my family are quite as well off as though we possessed mil- 
lions. I hope we may not be left to a feeling of ingratitude, or 
greediness of gain; and I feel unconscious of a desire to become 
rich. I hope my motive for exerting myself is higher." December 
2, 1847 : " I trust that getting or losing money does not entirely 
engross our attention ; but I am sensible that it occupies quite too 
large a share in it." 

In the next place, as to the acquainting his family with his 
"purpose of attacking slavery in arms," in 1839, the proof is 
again wholly defective. From John Brown's own hand not a 
word ; nor can we attach a literal sense to his autobiographic 
statement that a circumstance during the war of 1812 " led him 
to declare, or swear, eternal war with slavery." In 1834, a letter 
of November 21 to his brother Frederick shows him to be plan- 
ning the destruction of color prejudice and the ultimate overthrow 
of slavery by adopting a negro youth into his family, and giving 
him the same educational advantages which his own children en- 
joyed. This youth was to be begged of some slaveholder, or 
bought if need be. With this scheme he joined the starting of 
a school for blacks, either in some town in Ohio or Pennsylvania, 
or in a special colony. He thought a general instruction of the 
blacks at the North would " operate on slavery like firing powder 
confined in rock," and would constitutionally drive the slavehold- 
ing States " to set about the work of emancipation immediately." 
Noticeable here is the utter absence of any belligerent intention, 
and Brown's apparent ignorance of the recent suppression of the 
teaching of free colored youth of both sexes in Connecticut, — at 
New Haven, in 1831 ; at Canterbury, in 1833-34, — else he would 
not have vented himself solely on the slaveholders' " heaven-daring 



6 The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 

laws ag-ainst teaching blacks." Assuredly, John Brown was not 
at this time a reader of the " Liberator," and knew not where to 
turn for aid, except in his neighborhood — "from Hudson and 
thereabouts some first-rate abolitionist families." 

When was it that John Brown took an oath of his family with 
regard to slavery ? And what was the exact nature of the oath ? 
Mr. Sanborn says that Brown kept his undertaking — that is, his 
forcible intervention against slavery — " steadily before him for 
forty years [1820-59], educated himself and his children for it, 
and made it as much a part of his household discipline as were 
his prayers at morning and evening." The peaceful scheme of 
1834, just outlined, completely negatives this idea, and of this 
scheme Brown says, in the letter unfolding it, that it has been 
with him a favorite theme of reflection for years. A later date 
than 1820 ("at the time of the Missouri Compromise, when his 
hostility to slavery took definite shape") seems necessary. Mrs. 
Brown told Mr. Sanborn, in 1860, that she had known her hus- 
band's design, and been pledged to aid it, " for more than twenty 
years," — say since 1839. " ' For twenty years,' he told Richard 
Hinton in 1858, ' I have never made any business arrangement 
which would prevent me at any time answering the call of the 
Lord, ' " — say since 1838.^ "Jason Brown, who remembers well 
the oath taken by himself and his family when his father first 
made known to them his purpose of atiacMng slavery hy force^ 
thinks the time was not 1837, but 1839. The place, he says, was 
Franklin, and the time was ' when the colored preacher, Mr. 
Fayette, was at father's; and he (Mr. F.) and mother, John, 
Jason, and Owen were sworn to secrecy, and to do all in their 
'po'uaer to abolish slavery ^^ The phrases we have italicized are 
respectively Mr. Sanborn's and Jason Brown's ; and it cannot be 
maintained that the latter justifies the former. No more, neces- 
sarily, does the account of John Brown, Jr., in Mr. Sanborn's 
report of it, — " that the first time he ever saw his father Ineel 
in prayer was when he communicated to the older children (about 
1837) his ])urpose to malx active ivar upon slavery." This was 
equally the purpose of the non-resistant abolitionists ; and in his 
index Mr. Sanborn refers to the above incident in these peaceful 
terms : " Makes a compact with his sons to labor for emaiicipa- 

^ Compare Hinton's ac-connt (Sanborn, p. 472) of an interview with Brown 
in Kansas, on June 25, 1858, in which the hitter said : " I have waited for 
twenty years to accoEiplish my purpose." At that moment his purpose was 
Harper's Ferry. 



The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 7 

tion.^^ Richard Realf 's testimony, being discredited by Mr. San- 
born himself, we may disregard. 

The sum of the matter is, that at the time when our memo- 
randum-book takes the witness-stand, John Brown's life-long aver- 
sion to slavery had culminated in a sort of solemn family agree- 
ment to oppose the system ; but let who will believe (from the 
documents) that an armed attack lurked in it, though armed resist- 
ance might. 

Having put the years 1838 and 1839 behind us, let us examine 
the book for the year 1810. So far as abolitionism is concerned, 
the items will be found quite as barren as those just considered. 
Negatively, however, they, too, throw some light on the main con- 
tention of Brown's biographer. The leading event of 1840 for 
our Practical Shepherd was a journey to West Virginia to survey 
lands belonging to Oberlin College. Mr. Sanborn, beginning 
with rumor, ends with positive assertion (p. 133} : — 

" It is said that the first definite thought of the place where he should 
make his attack upon the slave system came to Brown while he was sur- 
veying lands for Oberlin College, in what is now West Virginia, in 1840. 
... It is west of the Alleghanles, and is not very mountainous ; but, in 
approaching or leaving it, Brown had occasion to observe how useful 
those mountains would be to any band of men who were aiming at eman- 
cipation by force. ' The mountains and swamps of the South,' said 
Brown in Kansas, ' were intended by God as a refuge for the slave and 
a defense against his master.' That he cherished this purpose when he 
wrote the following from West Virginia, nearly twenty years before his 
foray at Harper's Ferry, is certain ; and the thought that he had his 
great project in mind then, gives an interest to the brief letter." 

The letter in question says : " I have seen the spot where, if it 
be the will of Providence, I hope one day to live with my family," 
and has not a word that can be construed into an allusion to 
slavery or raids ; nor has another letter, from Levi Burnell, an 
Oberlin official, in reference to John Brown's settling on the Col- 
lege lands and ultimately being able " to make provision for 
religious and school privileges." 

Our memorandum-book opens the subject on pages 28, 29, with 
these entries in ink : " Oberlin Collegiate Institute in acts with 
John Brown: April 3d 1840 By cash pr Levi Burnell 50.00. 
April 3d 1840 Dr To cash for Clerk certificate 0.50. 14 To cash 
at Franklin 0.50," etc. Brown received fifty dollars and no more. 
His expenses are noted down to May 16. His observations on the 
country are devoid of any character not in keeping with the agri- 
cultural prospector's mission. Thus : — 



8 The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 

"April 23cl 1840 (Found on McP:iroy Big Beach bottom good Mill 
Seat undisputed Tract.) (Found on right branch of Big battle valueable 
spring, good stone coal, and exelent bottoms, good timber, sugar orchard 
good hill land, & beautiful situation for dwelling all right) X Course 
of this branch at the forks is South 21° West from a beautifid White 
Oak on which I marked my initials 23d April 1840 (J B), 

" 28th April found on big Battle below the forks good bottom land 
good Stone & on the left hand fork a fine bottom with one of the best 
Sugar orchards I ever met with. 

" Found on Brush Run some good bottom, durable water, good tim- 
ber, & Stone Coal, also first rate stone quarry, Sugar orchard also May 
11th. 

" Found on Israels Fork good botoms, good timber, Sugar orchards, 
and the appearance of good durable water, with good bottoms above, 
& below it, no appearance of Coal, nor of Stone, fit for working May 
11th. 

" May 12th Found on Riggins Run some good bottom land, some good 
timber, & some indications of Stone Coal, also some appearance of dura- 
ble water." 

These are all the observations, and they are followed by notes 
of what the farmers of the country would take for their acres and 
betterments. 

The note-book entries for the years 1841-44, of which the 
date cannot always be determined, are of slender interest. The 
itinerary on page 35 should apparently be identified with " the 
journey to Lowell (on which I now am) " referred to by John 
Brown in his letter of June 22, 1844, from Cleveland, as given 
by Sanborn. That on page 38, with an "Account of Co Money 
paid out for sheep & expences Oct 1844 by John Brown," I take 
to have been across the State of Ohio, from Carroll ton to the 
neighborhood of Dayton. On a fly-leaf is still another, without 
date, from Ohio to West Virginia, in the interest of Captain 
Oviatt, of Richfield, for whom Brown began to keep sheep in 
1841. Traces of this connection are to be found in two or three 
other places, as : " There were on the 1st Dec 1843 34 Saxony Ewes 
& Ewe Lambs of which J Brown owned 12 Yearlings from H. 
Oviatt's sheep Seven Lambs from do Eight." " H. Oviatt has 
now as we have counted 111 sheep in all to be sheared 13th April 
1844." There are sundry business entries relating to S. Perkins, 
Jr., and to the partnership of Wells & Brown, of which I believe 
no mention is made by Sanborn. Thus : " Of 114632. 50 Loaned 
to by Cattle J Wells & J Brown received each as follows (to wit) 
J Wells 110632.50 J Brown 14000." The latest entry of all is 



The Preludes of Harper s Ferry. 9 

on page 39, of a debit to Owen Brown, Sr., February 15, 1845, of 
which the final item reads, " To Cow agreed 15.00." 

In regard to books, we discover that John Brown, while in New 
York in 1838, made a minute to this effect : " Power of Religion 
by Lind M[i/%i6Ze]," meaning clearly enough Lindley Mur- 
ray's " Power of Religion on the Mind." A few pages later, per- 
haps to be ascribed to the following year, we come upon these 
memoranda, preceding the dimensions of slieep-houses : — 

" Get a good Truss for Jason 
Get some new Bibles." 

On page 18 (also, perhaps, in 1839) : " Bible, New Testament, or 
Spelling Book, for Ward B. Guy." 

Among the entries for 1838 occurs this memorandum on the 
same page with a recipe " To revive Lambs or Sheep when chilled 
with cold : " — 

" Deacon Abel Hinsdale left off entirely the use of Tobacco at the age 
of 66 now 73 and has used none since that time No ba[d] consequnses 
have followed Qery When will a man become to old to leave off any 
bad habit " 

(Deacon Hinsdale, be it remarked in passing, was brother to 
Captain Elisha Hinsdale, grandfather of Professor B. A. Hinsdale 
of Michigan University, who tells me that the veteran anti-tobac- 
conist died at Torrington, Conn., some time in the forties, and 
that, as was to be inferred, he was a man of character and stand- 
ing. He was a townsman and near neighbor of John Brown's 
father. Captain Owen Brown, also, says Professor Hinsdale, " a 
' character ' in his way, but after quite a different model from his 
more famous son. Native wit, combined with stuttering, made 
him one of the drollest of men.") 

Between entries for 1840 and for 1842 (these last recording 
John Brown's marks on buck lambs) are written in ink, at the 
same time, the following apothegms — one original, and carefully 
distinguished as such by being signed, and one quoted, with due 
credit to an economist of whom I can learn nothing : — 

" That kind of news which we most like to hear of others, affords the 
best possible index to the true character of our own hearts. John 
Brown." 

" The dependence of the rich, & poweful illustrated ; or a lesson of 
humility. If all others were as well off in the world as ourselves, they 
would be as fully employed as we, could not perform our work, & of 
course we should be obliged to do it ourselves, & our worldly posses- 
sions must be verry limited. Sylvanus Cook." 



10 The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 

In the foregoing ethical commonplaces we have all that John 
Brown confided to his pocket-companion, from which no one would 
guess that slavery was in his remotest thought. The Darwinian 
defense, the " imperfection of the geologic record," is, of course, 
valid here ; yet, taking the memorandum-book in connection with 
the documents in Sanborn's Life, one cannot resist the general 
impression that the struggle for existence and (so far as this per- 
mitted) religious concern of the common orthodox type were the 
Practical She^jherd's main preoccupations during the seven years 
1838-45. 

It remains to add that the book we have been examining 
abounds in excellent autographs of the owner, within and without, 

— " John Brown's Book " is legible on the outside of both covers, 

— and that I have given it to the Boston Public Library for 
deposit with its anti-slavery collection. 

II. — JOHN BROWN, GUERRILLA. 

" Circassia has about 550,000. 

" Switzerland, 2,037,030. 

" Guerilla warfare See Life of Lord Wellington Page 71 to Page 75 
(Mina) See also Page 102 some valuable hints in same Book. See also 
Page 196 some most important instructions to officers. See also same 
Book Page 235 these words Deep and narrow defiles where 300 men 
would suffise to check an army. See also Page 236 on top of Page." 

This entry, in ink, I copy from another memorandum-book of 
John Brown's, somewhat stouter than the one just analyzed, and 
sliglitly out of repair. Two leaves are missing from the front ; 
and the front cover, of leather, apparently went with them. The 
pasteboard substitute bears the following inscription : " This book 
of niems. was given me by Mrs. Brown at North Elba, Deer., 
1859. J. M. McKim." It is in the main a diary for the years 
1857-59, but on page [16] are three entries pertaining to cattle, 
of which one is dated January 1, 1855, when Brown was prob- 
ably at Akron, O., and another May 7, 1855, when he was cer- 
tainly at Rockford, 111. The debit of the former date, " Horace 
Hawkins, To balance of accounts 1.38," is noticeable chiefly as 
a reminder of the pseudonym, " Nelson Hawkins," which was 
Brown's favorite of his varied assortment in use from the time 
when he was " wanted " for " treason " in Kansas, to the catastro- 
phe at Harper's Ferry. 

It is piobable that the missing leaves contained entries for 



The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 11 

1856, in September of which year Brown evaded the warrant for 
his arrest issued by Governor Geary, and bade good-by for a 
while to the distracted territory of Kansas. On the first of the 
remaining pages is a list of " good stopping places between Iowa 
City & Tabor [Fremont County, Iowa]," the latter town lying 
on his northern route in the above exodus, and being about to 
serve him as headquarters and rendezvous. Below, penciled in a 
bold hand, we read, "Owen Brown [senior] died May 8th 1856," 
and " Fredk Brown was killed Aug 30th 1856 [in the Border- 
Euffian raid on Osawatomie]." Midway on the page stands this 
item : " Expence on Company horse sold in Iowa for |100, was 
19.55." 

The Company referred to was that irregular body commanded 
by Brown in 18o6, called the "Free-State Regular Volunteers of 
Kansas," whose covenant, articles of enlistment, and by-laws were 
copied out for Mr. Sanborn by Brown from the memorandum- 
book before me, and will be found on pages 287-290 of the Life 
of Brown. A few insignificant changes and omissions were acci- 
dentally made in the transcribing and need not be recorded here. 
The autographic roll of privates, on the other hand, suffered con- 
siderably in the double copying. For example, "Hauser"was 
utterly disguised in print as " Hereson ; " and even the surname 
of W. H. Leeman, the only one afterwards found on the list of 
the Harper's Ferry band, was inexactly spelt with a single e. 

Before passing to the entries for 1857 and the two succeeding 
years, let us revert to the extract with which we opened this chap- 
ter. The " Life of Lord Wellington " cited by Brown for its 
bearing on guerrilla warfare turns out to have been Joachim Hay- 
ward Stocqueler's " Life of Field Marshal the Duke of Welling- 
ton," published in London in 1852. Brown's references are 
to the first of two volumes. Pages 71 to 75 relate to Welling- 
ton's defensive attitude after Ciudad Rodrigo yielded to the 
French on July 16, 1810. He was assisted, says his biographer, 
" by the growth, activity, intelligence and determination of the 
Spanish Guerillas," whose operations Stocqueler proceeds to de- 
scribe at some length. " Mina, a chief possessing great authority 
and ability," dispersed his troops in small parties, and quickly re- 
assembled them, on one occasion defeating 2,000 French. Of this 
personage John Brown made a note in parentheses ; but he passed 
over as of little weight — perhaps owing to different conditions — 
the testimony, on page 74, of a British officer who served in the 
campaigns of 1809-14. 



12 The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 

" Do not suppose," says this oflBcer, " that we give the like credit to 
the GuerriUas as you have done in England ; for, liowever they may liave 
annoyed and even distressed the enemy, and rendered necessary the em- 
ployment of large bodies of troops to keep up communication, they never 
could nor would have liberated their country. This petty mountain war- 
fare could not lead to great results, while their miserable armies only 
entered the plains to be dispersed, and, but for our forces, all the best 
and accessible countries of every province were permanently subdued." 

The " valuable hints" on page 102 were contained in Welling- 
ton's warning to the people of Portugal to be prepared for a 
renewal of the French invasion, to conceal their valuables and 
provibions, and to bury objects of plunder. 

The " most important instructions to officers " were hints as to 
discipline and cooking, with praise of the French mess. 

On page 235 Stocqueler is summarizing the topography of 
Spain. " Here, then," says he, " we have a chaos of mountains, 
where we meet at every step huge fallen masses of rock and earth, 
yawning fissures, deep and narrow defiles, where 300 men would 
suffice to check an army," etc. The picture is continued at the 
top of page 236 : " Isolated towns, either perched upon eminences 
or enclosed within walls ; villages remote from each other, and 
half savage ; a people proud, sober, brave and ferocious — such 
are the elements which render this a country eminently adapted 
for defensive warfare, and almost impossible to be conquered." 

Indicative of a comprehensive scheme — whether of defense or 
of running off of slaves, who can say? — is the following entry by 
John Brown directly opposite the minutes relating to the native 
strongholds of Schamyl, Tell, and Mina : — 

" Fayettville North Carolina head of navigation on Cape Fear River 
Alleghany Pa Pittsburg 
Frankford Pa Bridesburg 
Pikesville INIaryland Pikeville 
Augusta Georgia Augusta 
St Louis Missouri 
Baton Rouge Louisiana 
Mount Vernon Allabama 
Charleston South Cai-olina 
Washington D C 
Little Rock Arkansas 
San Antonio Texas 
Apalacliicola at Chattahoochee : 
&, St Augustine Florida." 

We may never know the exact date at which the above memo- 



The Preludes of Harper s Ferry. 13 

randa were made. Richard Realf reports in a large way that in 
Canada, in 1858, John Brown " stated that he had read all the 
books upon insurrectionary warfare that he could lay his hands 
on : the Roman warfare . . . , Schamyl . . . , Toussaint . . . ," etc. 
To Realf, as to Sanborn, Brown, who " had followed the military 
career of Napoleon with great interest," unquestionably declared 
that he had visited the Continental battlefields in the fall of 
1849, with a view to learning what he could for the warfare he 
even then contemplated. Not much could be done in the two or 
three weeks he appears to have had for business and sight-seeing 
together. Waterloo, Leipsic, and Jena were accessible, but had 
few lessons for the guerrilla ; Switzerland there is no record of 
his having reached. 

What had happened in the interval between 1845, up to which 
time militant John Brown is undiscoverable, and 1849 ? His re- 
moval to Springfield, Mass., in 1846 ; the transportation of his 
family thence to North Elba in 1848-49. According to Sanborn, 
" soon after Brown's arrival in Springfield, he had begun to com- 
municate his purpose of attacking slavery by force to the colored 
men whom he found to be worthy of trust;" and Thomas Thomas, 
a fugitive from Maryland, is named as one such. Thomas was 
engaged by Brown as a porter, and, as a preliminary to his en- 
trance upon his duties, received from his employer " the outlines of 
his plan to liberate the slaves, and was invited to join in the enter- 
prise, which he agreed to do." The incident is an odd one, and 
the testimony is neither first-hand nor specific ; nor is it much 
helped by another alleged circumstance, that " Thomas was after- 
wards sent by Brown to look up Madison Washington, the leader 
of the courageous slaves of the vessel Creole, who was wanted as 
a leader among the colored recruits that were to join the band of 
liberators." But did Washington or any of his black Virginians 
ever venture back to their native land, which sought in vain their 
extradition from England, with a view to making an example of 
them as fugitives and " mutineers " ? 

Some time in 1848-49 Brown contributed to the "Ram's Horn," 
a journal published in New York by colored men, the article 
" Sambo's Mistakes," already referred to. In this. Sambo is re- 
proached with currying favor with the whites " by tamely sub- 
mitting to every species of indignity, contempt, and wrong, instead 
of nobly resisting their brutal aggressions from principle." 

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, and the con- 
sequent revolt of the Northern conscience, filled Brown with hope 



14 The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 

of a rapid multiplication of abolitionists. On November 28 he 
wrote to his wife from Spring-field : " I of course keep encouraging 
my colored friends to ' trust in God, and keep their powder dry.' 
1 did so to-day, at Thanksgiving meeting, publicly." Soon after 
this he formed these friends into a " Branch of the United States 
League of Gileadites," and drew up for them " Words of Advice," 
how to act concertedly against kidnappers. This document opens 
with the declaration : " Nothing so charms the American people 
as personal bravery. Witness the case of Cinques, of everlasting 
memory, on board the Amistad." Of Madison Washington and 
the Creole, not a word. The scope of the organization was 
purely defensive, and John Brown's part in it he looked upon as 
an attempt to " revive their broken spirits." 

In August, 1854, he wrote to his namesake : " If you or any of 
my family are disposed to go to Kansas or Nebraska, with a view 
to help defeat Satan and his legions in that direction, I have not 
a word to say ; but I feel committed to operate in another part 
of the field. If I were not so committed, I would be on my way 
this fall." It is not clear what he meant by the sentence in ital- 
ics. His five sons emigrated to the new Territory in the autumn, 
and a letter of John Brown, Jr., dated June 22, 1855, shows the 
father to have made inquiries respecting the cost of living there, 
and the chances of his being able to resume his business as a sur- 
veyor. On June 27, at Syracuse, N. Y., Brown publicly solicited 
arms for his sons and their Free State neighbors. By October he 
had joined them and was fully committed to the common armed 
resistance to Border Ruffianism, and within twelve months be- 
came a full-fledged guerrilla chieftain, " John Brown of Osawato- 
mie." In September, 1856, he was a fugitive, and began his 
extraordinary career of disguises and plottings that ended at 
Charlestown, Va. 

His journey northward is marked in the memorandum-book be- 
fore us by the list (on page [9]) begun on December 22, 1856, 
of persons with whom he " Left Subscription paper," and the 
several places in Ohio, Central New York (" with F Douglas & 
Daniel Anthony Esqs"), and Springfield, Mass. "I am trying," 
he said openly, " to raise from twenty to twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars in the free States to enable me to continue my efforts in the 
cause of freedom." In the first week of January, 1857, Brown 
had reached Boston, and made himself known to the Kansas State 
Committee, of which George L. Stearns was chairman. At 
Brown's request, Mr. Stearns wrote his name and official title on 



The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 15 

page [6] of the memorandum-book. On the next leaf occurs this 
contemporaneous entry : " Remington & Sons Ilion stop at Herki- 
mer (can make spears)." These were the pikes, meant for arming 
his slave recruits, contracted for with Charles Blair of CoUins- 
ville, Conn., on March 30, 1857 ; and here at last we feel that we 
really behold the dawn of Harper's Ferry. 

With January 12, 1857, on which day Brown wrote to Augustus 
Wattles in Kansas, the book becomes a more or less regular 
diary, and is especially valuable for its minutes of correspond- 
ence, incomplete as they are, as well as for traces of his restless 
wanderings. On page [15], among several New York city ad- 
dresses, we find: "Col H Forbes No 41 East 15th 3 Doors East 
of Union Square," or, by subsequent correction, " No 212 Broad- 
way N Y." This British adventurer, who had served under Gari- 
baldi, captivated Brown at first sight, and readily assumed the 
post of drill-master under the Yankee Mina. The date of their 
first meeting is perhaps recorded in this entry on page [16] : 
" Must see Col Forbes by April 17th [1857]." Forbes began at 
once to draw on the proceeds of Brown's " subscription papers " — 
1400 on April 27, 1200 on April 29, the full limit. Brown, mean- 
while, had passed westward on his way to Tabor and Springdale, 
Iowa, at which latter place his secret-service company was forming 
ready to Forbes's hand. But Forbes preferred the flesh-pots of 
New York, went on printing his guerrilla " Manual," and only 
reached Tabor in August. 

On page [16] Brown notes : " Enquire of Jonas Jones Esqr 
Tabor Freemont Co. Iowa : for letters for Nelson Hawkins " — 
that is. Brown himself. On June 3, 1857, at Hudson, O. : 
" Wrote A Wattles, & Wm Phillips both to write Jas Smith at 
Tabor Iowa." Sanborn prints this letter to Wattles signed with 
the new alias, " James Smith," on page 393 of his Biography, and 
the reply on page 394. On June 9 Brown made a fresh effort to 
draw his drill-master after him, witness this entry on page [21] : 
" Wrote Col Forbes to meet me at Bennet House Cleveland on 
the 17th June without fail." " June 11th Wrote Joseph Bryant 
to give assistance to Forbes if satisfyed he was ready to join me 
not otherwise." Bryant was a New York friend who kept watch 
on Forbes, and Sanborn prints (pp. 389, 3V)0) his reports, in which 
he evidently wavered between his perception that Forbes was a 
" dead beat," and his faith in him as an honest man. Brown 
addressed him once more on this subject as follows, page [23] : 
" Wrote order to Joseph Bryant Esqr East 41st Street New York 



16 The Preludes of Harper s Ferry. 

(Union Drove Yard) to collect |600, of Col Forbes if he had 
drawn it; & is not coming on at once; or to send my letter to 
Callender, & also to write Nelson Hawkins at Iowa City Iowa : 
Care Dr J Bowen June 2d 1857." On the same day, page [24] : 
" Wrote W H D Callender State Bank Hartford not to pay over 
to Forbes till further advised also to write me Care of Dr Jesse 
Bowen Iowa City, Iowa June 22d at Cleveland." "June 29th 
Wrote Joseph Bryant Col Forbes, & D Lee Child ; all that I 
leave here Cleveland this day for Tabor, Iowa ; & advise Forbes, 
& Child, to call on Jonas Jones." 

By July 6 Brown was in Iowa City, by August 8 in Tabor. 
This last was a heavy day for correspondence : letters to Wattles, 
Realf, William Phillips, his old lieutenant James H. Holmes, ap- 
parently as to the advisability of his being on hand at the fall 
election in Kansas ; to wife and children ; to Edwin Morton, of 
Gerrit Smith's family. On August 12, still at Tabor, he wrote 
to his New Haven friends, " Prof Twining & Dr Bacon." " Aug 
13th Wrote F B Sanborn & Mass State Kansas Committee same 
time." This is the first mention of his future biographer. " Aug 
14th Wrote Charles Blair of Collinsville Conn about contract 
[for pikes] & to write me through Jonas Jones." Blair's reply is 
given by Sanborn on page 378. Forbes, meanwhile, had arrived 
at his post. We read on page [26] : — 

" Jonas Jones Cr 

By 6 baskets Corn Six 

By board of Self & Owen from 7th Aug at Noon 

By board of Forbes from Sunday 9th at Noon." 

" Sept 10th Wrote Gerrit Smith, S P Chase, J B Jr, & George 
L Stearns." " Sept 11th Wrote Theodore Parker. Also: Charles 
Bhiir. F B Sanborn." The letter to Parker acknowledged an 
" immediate want of some five hundred or one thousand dollars 
for secret service, and no questions asked." Between^ entries of 
September 16 and 21 occurs this list : — 

» (Faitlif ul) 
Jas Red path 
M F Conway 
Wm PbiUips 
Daniel Foster." 

" Oct 2d Wrote F B Sanborn, & others through him ; at Boston : 
in way of report." This letter is printed by Sanborn on page 398, 
but is there dated October 1, at Tabor. It tells of Brown's drill- 



The Preludes of Harper' 8 Ferry. 17 

ing with his son under Forbes. " Oct 5th Wrote E B Whitman, 
John T Jones, & S L Adair by Tidd for money." This is the 
first mention of another of the Harper's Ferry band, Charles P. 
Tidd. " Oct 12 Wrote John & Jason not to reply : till I should 
write them again." He was about to revisit Kansas. " Oct 
31st Wrote John by Forbes, & by Mail also gave Forbes |35, for 
expences." " Oct 31st Let Forbes have Two blankets." " Nov 
18th Gave J E Cook |82.68 Gave Do 2.00" — still another of 
the Harper's Ferry company. " Dec 29th Realf began to board 
at Noon with Townsend." 

The year 1858 opened with Brown sufficiently in debt to William 
Maxson of Springdale, Iowa, for board of his embryo guerrillas, 
and on January 15 he started East to replenish his funds and to 
hasten the crisis. The day before, he " Left with men at Spring- 
dale 8 Copies Forbes Extracts 2 Copies Forbes Manual 1 Copy 
Army of the United States." Forbes had already departed, and 
was soon to menace the enterprise with exposure. " Jany 21st 
Wrote Forbes through John." By the 28th Brown was with 
Frederick Douglass in Rochester, N. Y. From this place, '' Jany 
30th Wrote Wife & Children; & Ruth in particular about Henry 
going to School &c " — that most pathetic letter printed by San- 
born on page 440, Henry being Ruth's husband, and the " school " 
being Brown's rash and perilous adventure ; the letter, too, in 
which Brown first and most distinctly expressed a realizing sense 
of his being an instrument of the Almighty. 

On February 1, 1858, he " Wrote G L S [teams] saying I 
would give him notice before using Check or Draft & return his 
Letter of credit on receipt of it, & to write N Hawkins Care of 
Wm J Watkins Rochester N Y at once." On the same date, 
" Wrote F B Sanborn in regard to many things," and the next 
day " Theodore Parker & Mr Higginson." Of all, as we know, 
he begged aid in raising " five hundred to eight hundred dollars 
within the next sixty days," " for carrying out an important meas- 
ure in which the world has a deep interest, as well as Kansas " — 
as he wrote to Parker ; " for the perfecting of by far the most 
important undertaking of my whole life " — as he wrote to Hig- 
ginson. Noticeable in this correspondence is Brown's distrust 
of the two men with whom he had iuid the closest personal inter- 
course, Stearns and Sanborn. He had either been franker with 
Parker, or had felt that this clergyman's intuitions were keener. 
In the letter of February 2 to him Brown says : " I have written 
to some of our mutual friends in regard to it [the raising of the 



18 The Preludes of Harper* s Ferry. 

new secret-service money], but they none of them understand my 
views as well as you do, and I cannot explain without their first 
committing themselves more than I know of their doing." And 
again, more explicitly : " I have written George L. Stearns, Esq., 
of Medford, and Mr. F. B. Sanborn, of Concord ; but I am not 
informed as to how deeply-dyed Abolitionists those friends are." 
To the Kev. T. W. Higginson he appears to be making his first 
communication, yet he says : " I have been told that you are both 
a true man and a true Abolitionist, and I partly believe the whole 
story ... I have written Eev. Theodore Parker, George L. 
Stearns, and F. B. Sanborn, Esqs., on the subject, but I do not 
know as either Mr. Stearns or Mr. Sanborn are Abolitionists. I 
suj^pose they are." In fact, neither of these gentlemen had been 
conspicuously associated with the Garrisonian body, as had both 
Parker and Higginson. Of Abolitionists Brown asked no certifi- 
cate except their readiness for forcible measures against slavery. 
To Theodore Parker he named Parker Pillsbury as possibly one 
such. " Do you not know of some parties whom you could induce 
to give their abolition theories a thoroughly practical shape ? . . . 
Do you think any of my Garrisonian friends, either at Boston, 
Worcester, or any other place, can be induced to supply a little 
' straw ' if I will absolutely make ' bricks ' ? " 

On February 5 : " Wrote J Brown Jr abot going to W & many 
other things." From Sanborn (page 450) we learn that " W " 
stands for Washington, and that the son was urged to go there 
and try to raise money of Congressmen. Also : — 

" I have been thinking that I would hke to have you make a trip to 
Bedford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg, and Uniontown, in Pennsylvania, 
traveling slowly along, and inquiring out every man on the way, or every 
family of the right stripe, and getting acquainted with them as much as 
you could. When you look at the location of those places you will 
readily perceive the advantage of getting up some acquaintance in those 
parts." 

On February 6 : " Wrote F B Sanborn freely abovt C F [Col. 
Forbes] saying write me as before directed." Forbes had been 
writing letters to Sanborn, Sumner, and Dr. Howe, holding them 
responsible for the termination of his engagement with Brown 
and consequent jjecuniary distress. February 9 : " Wrote J B Jr 
returning F [orbes's] Letter, &c." Sanborn prints this extraor- 
dinary letter of Brown in full on page 432. Forbes had written 
to Brown under date of January 27 in care of his son. Brown 
desires the latter to return the communication as if it had been 



The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 19 

withlield, on the ground that the elder Brown would regard it as 
" highly offensive and insulting ; " and further to inform Forbes 
that "I [i. e., John Brown, Jr.] was trying to send you a little 
assistance myself — say about forty dollars," whereas this lay 
wholly in the father's intention, who, if the rebuke had the desired 
effect on Forbes, " would like to get a draft for forty dollars, pay- 
able to his order, and remit him at once." 

Brown continued his pressure on his Eastern confidants. " Feb 
10th Wrote G L Stearns & Mr Sanborn to know if they can 
meet me at Gerrit Smiths. Wrote Charles Blair to direct Freight 
[the pikes] to E A Fobes Ashtabula, Ohio ; & to write me at 
Lindenville; Care of E. A. Fobes." " Feby 12th Wrote T W 
Higginson Worcester Mass asking him to meet me at G Smiths 
with Stearns &, Sanborn." This is the letter in which Brown de- 
fined his present purpose as " [Underground] Railroad business 
on a somewhat extended scale;" a measure "that I feel sure 
would awaken in you something more than a common interest if 
you could understand it." Mr. Sanborn alone answered the call 
to Peterboro', when Brown unfolded his Southern plan of cam- 
paign, showed his provisional "Constitution," and received the 
necessary encouragement. 

From Peterboro' he proceeded to Brooklyn, where he held con- 
sultations with his colored friends, particularly the Rev. J. W. 
Loguen, a frequent correspondent, as our memorandum -book 
shows. From that city on February 27, " Wrote F B Sanborn 
about books and Drilling & to enclose to Jas N Gloucester : for 
next Two or Three days." The reference to books is thus ex- 
plained by text (Sanborn, p. 443) : " I want to put into the hands 
of my young men copies of Plutarch's 'Lives,' Irving's 'Life of 
Washington,' the best-written Life of Napoleon, and other similar 
books, together with maps and statistics of States." The " Drill- 
ing " was innocent " best white cotton drilling." 

March 4 : " Wrote John to enclose to S'phen Smith Philadel- 
phia." Brown was now in Boston at the American House, where, 
beside his coal fire, he proposed to Sanborn the seizing of Har- 
per's Ferry — " putting it as a question, rather, without expressing 
his own purpose." To his son he wrote as above (Sanborn, p. 
451):- 

" As it may require some time to hunt out friends at Bedford, Chara- 
bersburg, Gettysburg, Hagerstown, Md., or even Harper's Ferry, Va., 
I would like to have you arrange your business so as to set out very soon, 
unless you hear to the contrary from me right away. Have pretty much 
concluded not to have you go to Washington." 



20 The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 

Brown was next due in Philadelphia, March 15, to confer with 
the Rev. Stephen Smith and other colored men of that city, to- 
gether with Frederick Douglass. Towards the end of the month 
he was at North Elba ; on April 2 at Peterboro', whence he re- 
paired to St. Catherine's, Canada. From this place : " April 8th 
Wrote J Brown Jr about Mr Case & to have him Case & John 
write me to Allex E Fobes." Case was a nurseryman near 
Rochester, and, from the letter, it appears that he had undertaken 
the commission formerly assigned to the younger Brown, namely, 
" hunting up every person and family of the reliable kind about, 
at, or near Bedford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg and Carlisle, in 
Pennsylvania, and also Hagerstown and vicinity, Maryland, and 
Haiyers Ferry^ Va.'^ Between the middle and the end of April 
Brown had journeyed to Springdale, Iowa, and back to Chicago, 
where he wrote to his family that part of his company had arrived 
on April 28. The following entry relates to these: " 1858 May 
1st Ten persons began to board with Mr Barber 29th April at 
Dinner Three others began may 1st at Breakfast." Brown spoke 
of them as " shepherds," and his enterprise as " wool business." 

Revisiting Chatham, in Canada West, he was apprised by San- 
born of Forbes's threats to publish the conspiracy, and responded 
on May 5 (" Wrote F B Sanborn about F; haste for funds"). 
On May 11, the day after holding a convention at Chatham among 
the fugitive slaves settled there, he again addressed Sanborn, as 
well as Gerrit Smith, on the same subject ; on the 12th, " Wrote 
Wife, & Children about F, ])rospects, mcmey. Flour," etc. (San- 
born, p. 455) ; on the 13th, Dr. Howe, " about F &c ; " on the 
14th, Higginson and Sanborn "about i^ matters hinting to ques- 
tion F about where I am or was." " You can say with perfect 
truth to F.," he wrote to Mr. Sanborn, " that you do not know 
what has become of me ; and you might ask him when he last 
heard from me, and where I was at the time." 

Meanwhile his company were eating him up, and he was bor- 
rowing of them and of their keeper : — 

" May 13 Kagi left boarding with Mr [Barber ?] at this date after 
Dinner 

" " Mr Barber Cr By cash lent me $10 

" " Richard Realf Cr By cash loaned me $10.84 

" " George B Gill Cr By cash loaned me $10.00 

" " Charles WJiipple Cr By cash for Owen 0.75 

" " C W Moffatt Cr By cash 0.50 

" " " " By paid Bowersock 1.50." 



The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 21 

Another embarrassment arose from a warning from Mr. Stearns 
not to use the Kansas defense arms in his possession for any other 
purpose, and a summons to New York. On May 19 Brown re- 
plied : " Wrote G L S about his Two letters [May 14, 15] ; Ex- 
pences &c ; urgently. "" But go to New York he did, and then 
to Boston, where the Virginia raid was postponed and a tempo- 
rary interdict placed upon the use of the arms except in Kansas. 
Thither our disappointed guerrilla chief now betook himself. He 
left Boston on June 3, he reached Lawrence, Kansas, on June 25. 
Midway, on eTune 16, he wrote a letter to his family, after which 
entry his memorandum-book is silent till April 5, 1859. 

In the interval, taking the name of " Capt. Shubel Morgan," 
and, for further disguise, letting his beard grow, he had formed a 
new company in the Territory, established a kind of fort near the 
Missouri border, crossed the line on December 20, 1858, and res- 
cued ten slaves, and then slowly convoyed them to Canada, which 
was reached on March 12, 1859. Sanborn prints (p. 519) an- 
other diary, beginning March 10, 1859, at Detroit, and, with a 
pause from March 25 to June 18, ending September 9. The 
missing entries are found in our memorandum-book, but are of 
little interest for our present purpose. 

Stitched in among the blank pages which succeed is a small 
fragment of blue paper indorsed " Due Jason $10," and with 
these lines penciled on the front : — 

to be peacible be 
"All peacible proslavery citizens known, shall set protected in their 
lives and property. 

direct or indirect 
" All injurious action .or information of that kind commu " 

And with this seeming rough draft of articles xxxiv. ("Neu- 
trals") and xxxv. ("No needless waste") of his Chatham pro- 
visional Constitution, I take leave of John Brown of Harper's 
Feri-y — logically and historically, the right man in the right 
place ; ethically, as one views him from the standpoint of Chris- 
tian non-resistance or " Christian " war. His second memoran- 
dum-book, like his first, is now in the Boston Public Library; for 
what would John Brown have been without Boston ? 

Wendell Phillips Garrison. 
New York, N. Y. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



011 899 137 0i 



